Admittedly, a lot of the Aspects' shortcomings could stem from the Titans apparently deciding that it would be hilarious to not tell their creations about the very Old Gods they were expected to keep from screwing up the planet. From the Aspects to the Watchers, the Pantheon's appointed protectors come across as frighteningly ignorant concerning the enemies from which they're actually supposed to be protecting Azeroth. Consequently, at no time during our conflicts with the Old Gods has it ever seemed like the Titans' servants had any idea what they were doing. It's one rushed patch job after another once disaster strikes, with plenty of "That's right, isn't there an Old God down there? Plumb forgot all about that!" moments.

So really, on some level the Aspects could have spent a lot of time twiddling their thumbs through catastrophe after catastrophe because by all indications, that's what they were told to do. The Titans empowered them and then left them with only the vaguest of marching orders. Which could account for their delayed responses to things like the Burning Legion and the Qiraji swarming across southern Kalimdor; they probably just plain weren't sure if those threats fell into their already poorly defined jurisdiction or if they were something to be handled by mortals or some other Titanic defense measure. Atop that, in WotA the Old Gods are implied to be borderline mythological beings to even the Aspects. Just what's the purpose of appointing protectors when they're left so uninformed that they and their followers only halfway even believe in the existence of the threat they were empowered to fight and have to deliberate to figure out whether or not a given disaster falls under the same umbrella as the spooky enemy they aren't even completely sure exists?

The Titans really just seem to have dropped the ball when it came to educating their creations on just where to point all those fancy powers they were given, so we have entire armies of powerful beings who literally just hang out not doing a job that was never properly delineated to them in the first place.

Seriously, the whole theme of the Old Gods/Dragon Aspect story has boiled down to "the very guys we're supposed to keep locked up are trying to escape! Who'd have expected that?" Gee, how about every person ever put in charge of keeping someone from escaping from somewhere? Except apparently on Azeroth, where ancient wardens built expressly for that singular purpose are routinely blindsided by the very concept that their prisoners might actually be interested in trying to get out. I guess Loken figured he was empowered as a courtesy to keep Yogg-Saron from getting lonely or something by listening to the Old God's crazy stories about how cool it would be to escape and how Loken should totally go crazy and let him so they can hang out.

But he wasn't doing his job in Wrath. He went against the charge that Norgannon gave him:

Yeah but he believed, that the rogue magic users of the mortal races were responsible for all of Azeroth's greatest threats, something he wasn't wrong about in reality. His sobering view point dating back to the Highborne's abuse and hearing second hand accounts of the most recent incursion. It's likely he heard tale of Mediev's corruption at their hands, the portal, the orcs, resulting in the undead marching across his land. Malygos's conclusions aren't really that far fetched, defend mortal magic as you may but his perspective and resulting confusion of "ENOUGH", has some serious weight. His consolidated effort to police magic falls in line with

Quote:

I believe that you will find that my gift to you is not just a profound duty--which it is--but also a delight--which it is! Magic must be regulated, managed, and controlled. But it must also be appreciated and valued and not hoarded. Such is the contradiction you must deal with. May you be dutiful...and joyous both. - Blessing of the Blue Aspect, given by Norgannon

He failed the first part of his charge for too long and realized his folly. He did give the magic users a chance to appreciate and value magic under the laws which Norgannon granted him. To suggest that not doing his job was his job all along is pretty... lame. I'm always going to side with Maly on this one, his timing for cracking the whip was ultimately the thing that led to his demise. Although Alexstraza being the one to get mad at him for actually doing work is the most laughable part of all. "Oh noes, Maly wants to take on his charge that the Titan's gave him, this means war!" That's like the most shes ever done to protect mortal life in ages, the circumstances of which are even more odd.

I believe that you will find that my gift to you is not just a profound duty--which it is--but also a delight--which it is! Magic must be regulated, managed, and controlled. But it must also be appreciated and valued and not hoarded. Such is the contradiction you must deal with. May you be dutiful...and joyous both. - Blessing of the Blue Aspect, given by Norgannon

I'll just say that there were probably higher priorities than the mages at that point, you know with the Lich King resurrecting one's long dead consort (I have no idea if that scene was before/after the conclusion of the Nexus War).

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Quote:

Originally Posted by ScytheRexx

I was more upset by the fact they turned him into a rapist.

Well... Keri went out of her way to burn one's consort of 10,000 years+ (apparently she was the mother of Arygos/Kirygosa) with the purpose of drawing aggro. Well congratulations, you have now drawn ire of the blue flight. Can't believe I'm trying to justify rape right now. Though it happened, so I'll have to deal with it (not that I'm happy about it).

That seems to be a recurring thing with dragons, though. I wonder if they have a knowledge of "consent" in their culture.

I have only really seen Deathwing and Malygos use the rape card when it comes to the Dragons.

You can probably argue Alexstrazsa was raped, but she was more being forced to have sex with one of her "husbands". She didn't want to be a breeding machine, but the orcs were at least not bringing in some other dragon to do the procreation tango with her, so it's a bit more slippery and probably lays more on the side of sexual abuse.

I have only really seen Deathwing and Malygos use the rape card when it comes to the Dragons.

You can probably argue Alexstrazsa was raped, but she was more being forced to have sex with one of her "husbands". She didn't want to be a breeding machine, but the orcs were at least not bringing in some other dragon to do the procreation tango with her, so it's a bit more slippery and probably lays more on the side of sexual abuse.

I was just pointing out that I find him being implied a rapist was a bit more of a character assassination point then anything else in the events, including his death. It's hard to have sympathy for his "Magic is destroying the world!" blight when he kidnaps a red dragon for procreation, even using magic to bend her will to his.

To be fair, said Dragon had just killed his consort, defiled her body and lit it on fire on his doorstep to taunt him.

To be fair, said Dragon was also imprisoned by Malygos in an empty dimension, with the intent of her spending eternity in there without escape until she simply went insane. She was not exactly the one throwing the first stone in this situation, but she was the one that suffered the most for it.

Saragosa has a quick, clean death at the hands of the player. Keristrasza has runes burned into her flesh, her mind broken through magic, and was going to be popping out all of Malygos future kids against her will. There is not much of a comparison.

Malygos was in the process of turning Keristrasza INTO a blue dragon, wasn't he? Wasn't that what those runes were about?

Let us also not forget that red dragons seem to have odd abilities that allow them to "revitalize" other dragons flights, at least based on what they kept implying in Day of the Dragon. Krasus used this "ability" as a bargaining chip with Malygos when he goes to visit the reclusive dragon in Northrend, and then later we find out that the whole events of the book, Deathwing was orchestrating in order to get at the cache of red dragon eggs, so that he could in some form restart the his own flight.

They never go into detail how this would work, but it was what they were playing with.